{LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 

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I UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. * 






POEMS OF THE PLAINS. 



BY 



WILLIAM DARWIN CRABB. 




CAMBRIDGE: 

PRINTED AT THE RIVERSIDE PRESS. 
I873- 



TS 14-4-1 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

William Darwin Crabb, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress) at Washington. 



The author wishes to acknowledge the liberality of 
A. B. Flower, of New York City, Uri Beach, of 
Franklin County, Ohio, and others, who aided in the 
publication of this volume, by their liberal subscrip- 
tions. 



HPO HER whose tender hand has touched to raise 

So many dying hopes, and not for praise ; 
Whose heart beats friendship for the throbbing 

world, 
Yet loves but one always — whose heart is pearled 
With unpaid deeds of kindness ; and whose eyes 
Are half-way envied by the purest skies — 
Whose eyes have shone out on the cloudy ocean, 
On which, a-tossing with a wayward motion, 
My trembling bark of heart goes on its sailing — 
Have shone out, on the routless sea, unfailing, 
As magnet light-house lights that God has given 
To win, and light me, to the port of Heaven ; 
Whose life is pure, and sweet, and good, and 

great — 
To her these humble songs 

I DEDICATE. 



CONTENTS. 



Why Sing 9 

Thus and So 10 

Wild Bill 13 

lOLA 24 

Ah ! Well ! 29 

Wolsbin 38 

" The Long-Haired Barbarian " .... 49 

From Texas to Chili 66 

Growing Old 8r 

Edgar A. Poe 86 

Three Wrecks 88 

A Book 92 

Indian Summer on the Plains 94 

Sailor's Farewell 97 

Life in Death 103 

The Garden Way 105 

Mother, Pray 109 

Esther 11 1 

Ellen 112 

A Memory 114 

"The Child of Woe" 115 

So Look Above 119 



POEMS OF THE PLAINS. 



WHY SING? 

"V^OU smile and ask me why I sing ? 
Tis easier to sing than tell — 
I only know there is a string 
So superfine, its music brings 
A plaintive voice, on gifted wings, 
That tries to sweeten wormwood tears 
By memories of purer years — 
Impure so long, O Love ! — Ah ! well, 
At least, I still may wish and sing! 

I only know a tender strain, 
Sent sweetly through my wayless night, 
Entrances me; and then I write 
And sing a yearning song again. 

I only know a golden lyre 
Gleams yellowly, whose every wire 
Pours poetry along the glisten — 
That I stand riveted and listen ; 
And then {they say) my hands I wring, 
And pour such pleading tears, and sing ! 



. THUS AND SO. 

"PIVE lines would tell the most of tales 
Which tellers lengthen to a volume, 
Because we hesitate to name 
The word that holds the woe or shame, 
Or thought of death, or chilling wails, — 
The word that is the pith of all, 
The longest tale or bitterest story, — 
The word that, like a tilting column, 
Stands puncturing the purple sky 
Of one's sad life, — stands drear and tall 
Alone, none other standing by, — 
Colossal shaft of love and glory. 

No wonder stories are not straight, — 
No wonder poets deviate, 
And hesitate, and stop and prate 
Of things outside what they relate, 
And seem to dread to stop and state 
The thought they circumnavigate. 
They wheel around and emulate, 
And over-tint, and over-rate 




Thus and So. 1 1 

These outside beauties, as they wait ; 

Then finally submit to fate, 

And write the line that makes them great! 

Men talk about "coherencies;" 
Some write upon another score, 
A better score ; for do not bees 
That wander, gather more of honey 
Than those coherent ones that hover 
Buzzing upon one flower forever *? 
And which is worth the most of money ? 

Some call my songs " so unrefined ! " 
Then say they "said it to be kind ! " 
The first is true as mother's kiss ; 
The second, like the coating ore 
Spread o'er the poorest kind of tin, — 
It shows the rust; it is "too thin," — 
I know the world too well for this ! 
Still I forgive and bear the pain ; 
For, of all that 's good and wise 
And beautiful beneath the skies, 
The only trace of Paradise 
Still left, is clustered in the bliss 
Of freely giving and forgiving — 
What else is worth the pain of living ? 



12 Thus and So. 

But then straight lines are not the kind 
That follow out the natural train 
Of people's thoughts; for men think more 
• Than forty score of outside things, 
While they digest one song or story : 
And so the world should not complain, 
If I could gain the more of glory 
By reaching out to touch these strings, 
These outside strings, to wailing rings 
Or sad or sweet toned whisperings — 
These incoherent strings and springs — 
And send up songs with gifted wings 
To sound in melody sublime 
With what the main string plays to time. 
No song is sweet, or is a-glee 
Or sad, or wells up grand and great 
That is not shackleless and free. 
And so I enter my complaint 
Against restraint. I will not taint 
My song-child's cheeks with poison paints — 
It shall be what the heart brings forth : 
It shall be worth — what it is worth ! 



"W 



"WILD BILL." 

ILD BILL " and I ! and miles of Plains! 
And one small solitary shade, 
A plum tree leaved in scarlet red ! 
Some buffalo, so far it strains 
The eyes to look ! and spotted eggs 
Of prairie hens strewn here and there ! 
And prairie fowls, with feathered legs, 
Fast panting in the evening air ! 

" And so,'' said I, " you love this life 
Of struggles on the woodless West? " 

" Wild Bill " replied, "Well, I could rest 
Once where was less of reckless strife. 
You see, sometimes, one makes a shot 
And misses ; then the game is done. 
In early life such was my lot — 
How long ago ! — shall I go on ? 



14 "Wild Bill." 

" Well then ; my Mary was a blonde, 
A pale face mellowed by some care 
Unusual, so finely fair. 
And I, somehow, have never found 
A face, an eye, or sunny hair, 
A heart, or head, or limbs, or breast, 
Or love, or goodness could compare 
With hers, divinest, loveliest. 

" And when she sang, or read, or spoke, 
Her slightest word, or shortest note 
Was milder than the mildest lute. 
They never cut, they never broke 
The happiness of any one. 
And every child and man and maid 
Looked up and loved her, as the sun 
Is loved by every flower and blade. 

" And birds were thicker in the trees 
And sat and chattered unafraid, 
When she was there; and, when she prayed. 
All Nature seemed upon its knees, 



"Wild Bill? 15 

And rich bees, overladen, came 
And clustered on her clasped hands, 
And tall-topt flowers, with hearts aflame, 
Tipped to her cheeks, as charmed wands. 

" Her song was like the melody 
Poured liquidly along the keys 
Of some piano in the skies — 
Like some angelic symphony, 
That glideth, on its wings of bliss, 
Along the glittering, glassy sea ; 
For nothing bears so pure a kiss 
Of Heaven, as music's melody. 

" I mind me one time, when she sang 
' And thousands listened wondering, 
As charrrfed children look and cling 
And toss their happy hands and hang 
Upon a mother's tender song — 
I mind me yet how heaved her breast 
With something deeper and more strong 
Than many human hearts have pressed. 



1 6 « JfW i?*//." 

" Souls lifted with her lifting voice. 
While, shining with a glance divine, 
Her blue blue eyes did overshine 
The splendor of the sky a-poise. 
And bearded men look up and weep, 
And rough brown hands and brawny arms 
Lift up and swing, and young folks leap, 
As leaps her voice, and holds, and charms. 

*' And, as the tides rush to the moon, 
A thousand waking sympathies 
Rush up to kiss her melting eyes — 
And strong men, rising one by one, 
Unthinking, crowd and weep and lean 
Like leaning ships, and children shout 
And mingle in the magnet scene, 
While white-haired men bow heads devout! 



■ God gives but one such love as she, 
With such divinely gifted feet, 
With heart of such uncommon beat, 
Such bounden love and yet so free, 



"Wild Bill? i 7 

Though earth is full on every side 
With many maidens true and false — 
I feign, be sure, when in the tide, 
To laugh with them, and shout, and waltz. 

" I ride fast on life's path ; I pay 

Too, as I go, some say, alas! 

And recklessly I click the glass 

And snatch their hands and laugh, and say : 

' Good-will ! good game !' — ■ What sayeth 
this ? " 

(And here he struck his heaving breast.) 
" Ah ! wretches, how I hear them hiss 

And spit their poison slander-pest ! 

" Gold glittering garments, fold on fold, 
That mantle false females, who snjile 
Like fallen angels, hiding guile, 
Did ye but know what hearts ye hold ! — 
Those slanderous tongues did tnurder her, 
Who stood so nearer Heaven, that she 
Must reach far down to where they were — 
This then is why I'm what you seel 



1 8 "Wild Bill." 

" This was so long, O ! long ago; 
And yet I see it as if near ; 
For, just as when the Plains are sere, 
We see a distant buffalo 
Stood off upon the highest hill, 
Far better than the nearer ones 
On lower ground, so, pale and still 
I see this all the moons and suns. 

" Then what if minted silver shine 
And rattle in the purse, and chink 
In chests chained down by diamond link ? 
What if the burden of a mine 
Of minted gold should pouch and weigh 
One's pockets till the ' law ' would pass 
And wink, and maidens droop and say, 
' How rich ! how grand ! — yet sad, alas ! ' 

" Then what of silver-glancing glint ? 
And what of gold and glowing gilt ? 
And palaces that tower and tilt 
O'er wide-spread lands afar a-tint 



"Wild Bill? 19 

With harvest wealth — that tower a-top 
This little tilting toppling earth*? 
All these were but a trifling drop 
To satisfy a world of dearth. 



"For what were these, if one must miss 
The only face, the only form, 
The only breast and clasped arm, 
The only elevating kiss, 
The only hand whose press or touch 
Could raise the dead heart, and arouse 
One slumbering joy, — the only such 
To heal the heart that bleeds and bows ? 

" The shadow of a face and form, 
The echo of a broken kiss, 
The coffin of a buried bliss, 
The phantom of a folding arm, 
Reflections of a Heaven-hid eye, 
The 'photo ' of a trail of hair — 
These I have bound in one bouquet, 
And always at my bosom wear. 



20 " Wild Bill." 

"And this is more to me than all 
The world with all its glossy ore — 
And this sets nearer to the core 
Of life and heart, the ' great in small.' 
It matters not how little it, 
For anyhow its silent bloom 
Leaves in my spirit scarce a whit 
Of one thing else an inch of room. 

" But still, I swear, accursed Defeat ! 
I will not bow, I will not bend 
The knee to thee, I will not send 
A messenger — I will not beat 
The gong of weakness — will not start 
A messenger ahead to shout 
Thy coming — \ will not lift apart 
A lip of wailing on my rout ! 

" I hear thy tramp, I feel thy breath 
Blow poison in my face, I feel 
The chill air from thy daggered steel, 
I hear thee whispering, ' Death ! death ! '■ 



"Wild Bill." 21 

Stand back ! avaunt ! I was not born 
To give way at thy damned thrust ! 
That I will slay thee I have sworn, 
Or drive thee as the wind drives dust ! 



"What care I for the curse of fools *? 
Or if my creed be orthodox % 
Since hearts of orthodox are rocks, 
Or flattery-fed and fawning tools. 
What if I see despised dolts, 
Whose hands I would not stoop to hold, 
Step up and lift the rusted bolts 
That open into rooms of gold ? 

" My heart is as the mighty tent, 
The canvass of a mighty show' 
Where fierce desires growl, crouching low, 
And surly lusts are barred and pent 
In chariots painted splendor-fair. 
(God keep them pent ! let loose, who knows 
What desolation and despair 
May follow where their raging goes!) — 



22 " Wild Bill." 

" Where hopes, like gilt-clad tumblers toss 
And wheel and tumble in a ring, 
And circle in its dust, and sing, 
And marks of misery emboss 
By surface-shine, while all within 
Is sickness watching with the dead 
Automatons amid the din 
And dust and wild and weary tread ! 

" O red-winged life ! with bloody beak 
Scouring the wild plains of my heart 
To catch prey for the hungry mart 
Of misery ! I was not weak — 
I paid them for their godless sneers, 
No matter how — I made them feel 
The reflux of my youthful tears 
Drop back on them like frozen steel. 

" I know not what may lie beyond ; 
I care not what may face me here — 
Of life or death I have no fear. 
I've built my heart-tomb massive-stoned; 



11 Wild Bill." 23 

So, though my body never dies, 

Nor men, nor maids, nor fame, nor gold, 

Can look upon the placid eyes 

Of my heart's Love in dead white fold! " 

A cloud, to east in upper air, 
Was dipping from the boiling sea 
Her golden waves. It bent its knee 
And dipped, and lifting, unaware, 
Some oversplashed its cup, and fell 
And flashed afar a lightning flash, 
And sounded with the distant swell 
Of thunder with its hoarse-toned plash. 

And speckled prairie fowls arose 
In cackling swarms, and skimmed the sky — 
Made mimic thunder, passing by, 
With wings arched as the bend of bows; 
And meadow-larks closed their tender 

strains 
To weep above the coffined day, 
When muttering something of " the Plains " 
And " charity," he rode away. 



IOLA. 

TOLA blushed and dropped her head, 

And fondled my hand, and teased, and said : 
" Now tell me the tale you used to, when 
I was a laughing girl, as then 
You told me, swinging over the gate, 
Forgetting the hour was growing late." 
/ And so I smiled, as I raised her head, 
And chucked her under the chin, and said : 

" The Plains were as wide as the widest sea ; 
And the top was alive with a toss of glee 
The whole year through; and the houses stood 
As few as ships on the ocean flood — 
'Twas there I dwelt with the bride whose eyes 
Were violet, black, nor the color of skies, 
But a beautiful color, nor wild, nor tame, 
A color that never has found a name. 

The land was as broad as the broadest main 
Forever a-surge — Again and again 
The waves were green, with a painted foam ; 
And again and again, as the dry winds came 



Iola. 



25 



In the heated August, and the longing eye 
Saw never a cloud, in the flushing sky 
The size of a hand, has the green turned gray, 
And again and again has the gray grass spray, 
As the Indian summer sun looked down, 
Turned from a gray to a deader brown. 

One time we stood and the stern round sun, 
When the east was red and the west was dun, 
Rose burning so hot that the grasses' spires 
With dew-tips tossing like tongues of fires, 
Strung off to the east as a caravan 
Of pilgrims clad in flame, and ran 
And swung their arms and, one by one, 
Seemed pouring into the templed sun. 

Then, as the east was glowing red, 
The upper heavens turned dun and dead ; 
And, low in the west and pinned to land, 
Flowed up two strips of a rainbow band, 
And torn and bloody and blue, alack ! 
And caught in a cloud of green-tinged black. 

And ever then, as the bow shone brighter, 
The tint to the orient red grew lighter 
And less and less, as a dying crater, 
2 



26 Iola. 

And the green-tinged black grew darker and 
greater. 

The wind kept stopping, then starting again, 
And looking a-west and pulling the rein 
To rest his steed till the cloud should come, 
When, spurring his steed in the stormy gloom, 
High over his tangled and dusty mane 
He would swing his hands and swoop the plain 
And shout and sing till the prairies ring 
And the frightened grasses drop and cling 
To the sounding ground a-quail with thun- 
der ! — 
And then, as we looked, the sun went under. 

' Such a terrible sky, on a rain-bowed morning 
Is our, as well as a sailor's warning ! ' 
She said, as she pressed her cheek to mine, 
And her chestnut hair did kiss and twine 
And mingle with mine. Now, clasping her, 
I shuddered to feel her bosom stir 
With a beat it never had beaten before. 
I looked in her face — a tear fell o'er 
My darling's cheek ! — for she, you know 
Was young as a girl, as yet, and so 



Tola. 2 7 

I called her my ' darling ' and ' girl,' 'tis true ; 
But you are older than she, and you 
Are prouder and bolder than she; and I 
Somehow could never, I know not why, 
Call you the same as her — however, 
My love for you is strong as a river — 
And so, if I never should give you the name 
That I gave to her, it is all the same. 

Then a terrible rush of wind came on, 
Whirling the dust, and then — was gone. 
Not a single mote of the world in motion ! — 
Still as a heart in last devotion ! 

The black o'er-head then flashed with fire — 
And the stillness startled as if a lyre, 
Whose wires hung spanning the universe, 
Were struck to mutter a mighty curse ! 
The world awoke, with the pealing noise, 
And startled and shook, as a mote, a-poise, 
Would shiver upon a quivering thread ! 
Scarcely the stunning sound was dead, 
When the sudden rush of a fiery flood 
Streamed over the heavens. I started — 
stood! — 



28 Iola. 

And a burning bullet, a blazing ball, 

Shot down from the battery clouds, where wall 

On wall is set with cannon to war 

The world below — fell like a star — 

Flew red and swift, and a scented heat 

Followed the trail of its flashing feet ! 

And, hissing by, as a heated dart, 

Its breath I feel — I cling — I start — 

But — never a breath again, and never 

Another word, from her lips forever ! " 



AH ! WELL ! 

T TE. gazing on the ruined mound, 

Said to the group that gathered round : 
44 I saddled, like an Indian brave, 
Our Indian ponies standing trim 
With feet entwisted in the wave 
Of wild grass breaking like a tide, 
Their eager eyes cast out, in pride, 
Into the distance, doubtful, dim. 
Our hopes were high — our loves were set 
With deeper hold than ever yet 
Were jewels in the massy gold — 
And thus high-hoped we mounted steeds. 
The first wheel, as they stirred the grass 
To motion with their prancing feet, 
They started from his coiling fold 
Beneath a shady clump of weeds, 
A rattle-snake, that rattled hoarse 
And lifted up his head to greet 
Us with his eyes of lead-like glass, 
And startled us from out our course. 



3Q 



Ah! Well! 

We spurred, and, drawing tighter rein, 
Went dashing o'er the endless plain. 

And then sometimes my fair one sung 
The sweetest and the purest song 
That ever flowed o'er human tongue. 
And as she sang, at times, I flung 
My hat into the air, and she 
Would catch and hand it back to me. 
This is one blessing that we bear 
With us upon the boundless plain : 
We are not held in the restrain 
Of customs that would cramp the free ; 
And so we sing or shout at will 
And gallop, with no thought of fear — 
We need suppress no single word 
Of love, to whisper, ' Hush, be still ! 
Take care ! for we are overheard ! ' 
For all that roam upon the Plain 
Have charity, and so refrain 
From anything that tastes of blame — 
This is the blessing that we claim. 
O give me then my land of plain, 



Ah! Well! 31 

Where all is as it is, and this 
Is as God made it, with the kiss 
Of freshness and of purity ! 

" We loved well in the selfish east, 
Loved well and warmly, still ' were wise,' 
Though others said not so, alas ! 
They whispered what they knew not; we — 
Well, we '■were wise ' — but let this pass — 
And so we came where love is love, 
Not bland formalities, or lies, 
Or simperings of soulless fools — 
Where God is judge of chastities — 
Where love is not a set of rules, 
That bind so tight and press so hard 
They press its sweetness all away — 
Where love is not a tight gold glove 
That ruins, while it hides, the hand, 
And leaves it cramped and cut and scarred. 
We too were riding in the sun, 
We two rode leisurely, as one — 
Rode on and sung, without a fear. 
One buffalo browsed on a hill 



32 Ah! Well! 

Four miles away, and yet seemed near — 

Now browsed, now looked as sentinel 

For some great herd beyond below. 

Blue-racers glided swift between, 

Parting the gray-tipt tides of green. 

Great bull-snakes dragged themselves away — 

And unwound blood-snakes, stretched out, lay 

Harmless in the shade of weeds. 

And now and then jack-rabbits ran 

Away from us with gaits and speeds, 

That made them seem as wild dwarf steeds. 

And wild fowls flutter up and fan 

The grass in eddies, as they go. 

But now as it drew on to noon 

I wished we never had begun 

The chase, the sun came down so hot. 

For, as I looked on her, I thought 

All was not right ; somehow the heat 

Fell down so like a fire-armed foe. 

Her queenly blood, with swifter beat, 

Kept bounding to her flushing cheek. 

Somehow I thought her clasp more weak 

Than when she clasped an hour agone, 



Ah! Well! 33 

And that her song, when then she sung, 
Was softer in its touch and tone. 

" Life is just such a race as this, 
Begins in love and balmy bliss, 
And ends in hot sun's heat and hiss. 
Our hopes are scarcely well begun 
Before they end, and end amiss; 
And leave us, black-robed as a nun, 
To wish it never had been run. 

Run slow, young boys and joyful girls ; 
Or, ere aware, your flooding curls 
Will be thin white, or dull dead gray; 
And afternoon will be so short ; 
And slower ones will come and say : 
' I knew ! I knew ! ' weep and escort 
Your coffin to its cave of clay. 
Be boys and girls long as you may, 
And do not mind, if fast men mock 
And women sneer because you play. 
Haste not to lay your childhood by. 
It is a cooler, lighter cloak 
Than old ones wear — stay longer nigh 



34 Ah! Well! 

The hut door at the first of life. 
Young girl, haste not to be a wife. 

" Run slow, run slow, I say, run slow ! 
The swifter run to heated noon, 
The shorter afternoon to run. 
Be boys and girls long as you can ; 
For, if you never leave your youth, 
You never need reach back your arms, 
In vain, for childhood's fleeing truth — 
Need not look back and weep and throw 
Out tackles after loved lost pasts — 
Tis nothing more to be a man 
Than this : to climb up broken masts 
And wrestle in the shrieking blasts, 
Cry chorus with the crashing thunder 
And roaring waters plunging under, 
And strike fists with the whirling storms, 
And then go down the sea at last 
And sink amid cold clutching forms, 
While young folks stand, and look, and 

wonder 
Why older lives are cloud o'ercast ! 



Ah! Well! 35 

'Tis worse than this to be a woman. 
Be all you can — be true — be human ; 
But still be boys and girls, at least ; 
For ' manhood ' often means but 'beast ' ; 
And to be woman means — to wed? — 
And wailings for the past and dead ? 

" My young bright girl, wjth golden curl, 
Men look on you and call you ' Pearl ' — 
To still be 'pearl,' remain a girl. 

" The sun grew hotter as it slid 
Down from the centre to the west. 
The sky above seemed concave steel 
Reflecting all the heat to earth. 
The hard red sun, the while he did 
His way adown the curved sky, 
Seemed striking fire anew, yet pressed 
Swift onward, and a liquid fire 
Seemed curling round his red-hot keel. 

I looked up in her drooping eye 
And needed no electric wire 
To tell me we must wheel us back — 
Re-run in haste, the forenoon's track. 



36 Ah! Well! 

" Our canteen, swung to saddle horn, 
Grew lighter every mile we ran — 
Grew warmer every breath we took. 
Our faithful ponies' heads began 
To lower with their loss of speed ; 
For hot and tired, their heads were borne 
Less lordly than at early morn. 
My darling cast a pitying look 
Upon her pets, her prides, her steeds, 
And leaned and stroked their necks and wept 
And spoke a few kind words. They raised 
Their heads to hear her voice again — 
One moment only — then they fell. 
And still the dry sun hotter blazed. 

" Our canteen now swung like a bell, 
Rung, hollow drained, hung dry, and shone 
And tolled at every bound — and this 
Is why a bell-knell sounds so fell. 

" More languidly the steeds went on, 
Half stumbling by the clinging kiss 
Of sun-curled, dying blades of grass. 



All! Well! 2,7 

' She leaned on me — O ! could I rest 
Her now upon my wayward breast ! — 
She then pressed face to mine and yearned 
To say what — never has been said. 
I lifted up her falling head ; 
Mine nearer to her lips I pressed, 
That I might feel what thought did move 
Unheard, upon her lips of love — 
I held my breath ! — she smiled and cast 
Her blue eyes up to heaven — they turned, 
From sweet blue eyes, to — staring glass I 

•'No wonder then I sit and tell 
Myself the story o'er and o'er — 
Stand looking from my humble door 
And watch the grass and sigh, ' Ah ! IVell ! ' " 



WOLSBIN. 

PIS sad to see the last leaves fall and float 
Off on the freezing stream to some broad 
bay 
To mingle with the drift of many a boat, 
Shattered and tossing helpless night and day 
Upon its top-pitched swell ; 'tis sad to note 
The fade of twilight; it is sad to lay 
The last sun-beam upon the couch of night, 
And know that, ere it wakes, some soul takes 
flight; 

'Tis sad, 'tis sad to see the last brown blade 
Of grass buried beneath the first white snow 
Of winter ; 'tis sad to hear, across the glade, 
The mellow song of some lone bird, and know 
That, when its plaintive dying notes shall fade 
To silence, 'tis the last ; 'tis sadder, though, 
To follow out the last friend — as a wave, 
A body, dead, afloat — to a silent grave ! 



Wolsbin. 39 

Now there was left but one he called his friend, 
And she began to think she could not stand 
His loss of fortune ; so it put an end 
To her fond love, when once she heard his land 
Had scattered with his parents death. She 

penned 
Wolsbin a heartless note, with the cold demand 
To meet her for a last "good-by" ; for the time 
Has come when to be poor is called a crime. 

" So I must go," said he, " I know not where. 
Perhaps the midnight noise of dance may float 
Over this stream unvisited and fair ; 
And, in the music's wild sweep, you may note 
The muffled tread of feet that used to bear 
Up from the brink gay blossoms, while you 

wrote 
And wove their beauty in impassioned thanks 
To heaven and me — wrote by these banks. 

" Perhaps the lonely lot of some wild rover 
May find me warring with the solitude 
Of ruined heart-hopes lying scattered over 



40 Wolsbin. 

The buried fields of trusting childhood's wood 
And plain, where we were wont to love and 

hover 
Around each other's wishes — where the flood 
Of thy gold hair was wont to pour and toy 
With dancing breezes leaping wild with joy. 

" Perhaps a bloated body, on the tide 
Of some soft-tinted sunset of the West, 
Unseen, unsaved, unwept, unknown, may ride 
A wave amid its sprayed and sparkling crest 
To that fair sighing shore, and lie undried 
Upon its silvery sands — then know the rest, 
That this dull head was tossed upon the billow 
Till lifeless left upon its watery pillow ! 

"Perhaps we'll meet beyond the grave — how sad 
The uncertainty in that strange word perhaps ! 
Perhaps? the very thought would drive one 

mad. 
Such doubt, while looking in the future, wraps 
A sleety shroud upon the heart. O, had 
We surety we will meet again ! — But flaps 



Wolsbin. 4 1 

Still that uncertain leaf — Perhaps, then, we 
May walk with Christ upon the crystal sea ! 

" You tell me these have been your happiest days, 

And that amid your dreariness, regret 

Will never pain you that our wandering ways 

Beneath the light of Heaven ever met, 

And that your heart still pants and prays 

For mine. You say those days throw round you 

yet, 
In golden fabric, all your youth's bright hue. 
'Tis blotting out the sun — but still, Adieu ! " 

And so they parted, — he gone a- wandering 
And weary hearted, although ever striving 
To find another to fasten his meandering 
Mind, while Luella still kept eager driving 
Her new planned suit, her misturned life thus 

squandering 
On dreams of pelf, leading a way of living 
To rue when old. False God, demon of 

money, 
Whose temple is a hive of poisoned honey ! 
4 



42 Wolsbin. 

He thought : This life is but a crooked stream 
That hisseth slowly through the world's wide 

meadow ; 
And worldly love is but an idle dream 
Afloat upon its surface, like a shadow. 
And then he turned and looked upon the gleam 
Of Mammon's temple — saw an Eldorado, 
He thought, lie spread beyond. So he redressed, 
And packed his trunk, and started for the West. 

And where he was for two long years thereafter 
Nobody ever knew. At least he grew 
Immensely rich, so suddenly the rafter 
Of the old hut in his heart fell down for a new 
And stately mansion, which with feigned laugh- 
ter 
E'er echoed. Yet, though kept unseen, 'twas true 
His heart in those two busy years grew old. 
We find him now returning with his gold. 

And, as he rode along the broad Missouri, 

He saw another engine rushing over 

On the other side — just as, beyond the worry 



Wo Is bin. 43 

Of this fleet world, doffing our mortal cover, 
Landing beyond the river's turbid fury, 
When safe upon its new-found brink we hover 
A train from Heaven will take us to a lot 
In fields of Paradise — 'twas thus he thought. 

In the meantime when Wolsbin was at home, 
That is, what used to be his home, he heard 
Luella was unmarried still, and some 
Place o'er in Europe : and it was the word 
That she would set sail back in a week from 

Rome. 
At this, of course, his heart was wildly stirred. 
And so he hastened to the sea to greet her 
Coming, and yet he scarcely dared to meet her. 

And there he waited for the vessel bearing 
Her homeward, when the news came of a wreck ; 
That it had struck a hidden rock, while near- 

ing 
A new-found land, and that the broken deck 
Whirled in a maelstrom, like a wind-tossed speck, 
And then shot down like lightning with the dead. 



44 Wolsbin. 

May God forgive him what his pale lips said ! 
May men not hear it ! But enough, he wept 
A moment, then he sat and looked upon 
The waves, until a spell upon him crept. 
The ocean changed — he saw a lurking stone — 
A whizzing maelstrom just beyond it swept — 
He saw the powerless dizzy ship go down; 
Then — not a remnant of the wreck did float. 
May Heaven bless him for these lines he wrote : 

"So here I am, homeless. The brown leaves 

flow 
Over my weary head : and, while I kneel 
Upon this sand-shore, tears of woe 
Spoiling my cheeks, how well, too well, I feel, 
I feel — I know not what I feel ! — but O ! 
When Heaven's angel shall this sea unseal, 
May I not with her from her salt-wrapt grave 
Go forth ? and once more tell her I forgave *?" 

He bent his knee upon the brined shore, 
Alone, except these memories and God — 
Knelt where the billows throw forevermore 



Wolsbin. 45 

Their storms of foam upon the filtering sod, 
And offered up a prayer — then rose and bore 
Away upon his heart the dreary load, 
The brine-bleached dead, the wayward loved 

white dead, 
And kissed her lifting hands, and breast, and 

head. 
........ 

He feigned full many a smile and many a laugh 
And far-fetched merriment and soulless glance, 
And strove to scatter with his friends the chaff 
Of levity, and laugh to see it dance 
In thoughtless joying; and he strove to quaff 
The glass of glee, but there there lurked a trance, 
A curse that turned the liquid into foam : 
He drank its nothingness to the health of home. 

And people called him cold: they did not see 
Beneath his gay and jewel-flashing coat, 
The painful throb — did not observe the tree 
On which his hopes hung crucified, nor note 
The crowns of thorns pressed in his heart. O ! 
we 



46 Wolsbin. 

Are cruel to the sorrowing world, and gloat 
Over our own small pains ! They called him 

cold, 
But knew not that his heart was gray and old ! 

" This looking through the porthole of the tomb," 
He said, " this measuring one's own ebon coffin, 
And carving one's own tombstone in the gloom 
Of eve — this singing one's own dirge, and often 
Sitting at twilight in this damp drear room ; 
This waiting for a broken heart to soften 
Its sorrow in the grave ; this fever to die — 
Would burn the last tear from the weary eye. 

" For, O ! Luella, though the world befriend, 
And strive to cover, with their garlands smiling, 
The hungry future, while the prairies lend 
Their gorgeous splendor, with their boiling 
In the wind, yet mourning fancy will but bend 
Down o'er thee lying in the sea, dead toiling 
With the waves — still memories of thee I pon- 
der, 
Although broad roaming and as wild as yonder 



Wolsbin. 47 

" Untamed bird sitting on the mountain pine, 
Which, solitary from its mount-top, flows 
Above the vale, which, like an emerald line, 
Wends round the base. The very wind that blows 
Reminds of thee — the very stars that shine 
Seem gleaming like thine eyes ; and dim seen 

bows 
Of promise in the valley mists, seem bending 
Like those that used to arch thine eyes, and lend- 
ing 

" A lustre to their misty tears — and thus to 

wait 
And wait for what will never, never be — 
Ah ! surely this is Time's most cruel fate ! 
But then, althro' the flowers of mystery, 
And doubt, and fear, and pain, is not a straight 
And narrow way that leads up to the tree 
Of life, that blooms and gleams beneath the light 
Of Christ upon the holy mountain height? 

" Who knows when parted once how long till 
met? 



48 Wolsbin. 

This Sabbath evening, not an echo breaks 
The sombre quiet. Gold specks 'gin to fret 
The sky; and now and then some glistening 

flakes 
Of frost go softly floating by, then set 
Again, and melt into the little lake's 
Waves, like small stars gone down. So man 

floats on 
A moment through this world, and then is 

gone ! " 



"THE LONG-HAIRED BARBARIAN." 

"V li /"HAT unusual color of hair ! 

What weight of hair on his shoulders 
square 
And broad, and lifting bold, and clad 
In raiment as quaint and grand and old 
And rich as a king's in times old-told ! 
And, when he was known on the Kansan plain, 
His foemen fancied his fold of hair, 
As he ran in the wind and they knew him mad, 
Shook as a furious lion's mane. 
But now, as he sat on the shore a-sad, 
Receiving and believing the telegrams 
Come up through a quarter-hundred years, 
The storm of his hair did seem as the fair 
Falling folds of an orphan child's. 

Stopping and dropping his cane on the sands, 
He turned and lifted his kingly hands, 
With rings as rich as that of the Pope, 



50 " The Long-Haired Barbarian? 

And, looking into the trembling palms, 
Followed the course of the cuts and mangled 
Trenches over his palms, in hope 
To trace to the place where, crossed and tan- 
gled- 
Trace to the place, now near at hand, 
Where the wayward lines shall have measured 
and spanned 

His length of life 

" Great God! what wilds 
Of tossing and crossing forests, and places 
Of fallen flowers and reaching grasses 
And deserts, and places of skeleton faces ! 
What Godless struggles and foul grimaces 
Of demons over the dead on the plains ! 
What blood-red rivers ! how many a curse ! 
What crimes and frauds ! what budless rods 
Have lifted and smitten the rocks for gains — 
Lifted, alas ! commanded by gods, 
But gods of evil — filling the purse, 
But robbing the heart and heaven ! Great God ! 
What a checkered and stained and sin-strewn 
course 



" The Long-Haired Barbarian? 5 1 

These broken lines on my palms betoken ! 
What marring and scarring and tears and 

blood ! " 
He said — when his will, so bold and oaken, 
Grappled his lips when this was spoken 
And snatched from their hold, so cruelly cold, 
Something about to set them a-trill — 
Snatched, and latched his lips lock still, 
Still as the lips of a god of gold, 
Of the golden image in Dura of old 

Then after a moment he lifted his head 
And mastered his will, and his lips unwed : 
" 'Twas on the disorderly Kansan border 
I lived with her amid the disorder 
Of ruffian races, and struggled for order, 
And baffled the cunning of red-men running 
Wild as the winds, and baffled the shifting 
Cold winds of the winter, lifting and drifting 
Snow-winds of the weather, and baffled the 

cunning 
Of the hurricaned fire-fiend lapping and lifting." 
He went on to say, growing warqper and bolder, 
One hand on his knee, in the sand and the sea 



52 " The Long-Haired Barbarian." 

His cane free-fallen, like the trunk of a tree — 
One hand on his knee and one on my shoulder — 

" Our hut stood alone on the Kansan border, 
Stood long and lone in disorder and order, 
Where a river rolled by in a wonderful way. 
In high-water time, it swept to the door, 
While flowered floods of grasses broke up from 

behind — 
The floods of wild grasses, whose waving sur- 
passes 
This Mexican gulf for folding its masses. 
When the river was low, it ruffled the reeds 
That grew in the stream, as the flowers and 

weeds 
Are stirred in the grass with its waves unbrined, 
And the tides of the ocean of grass broke in 

spray 
'Gainst the river, set along as a rock on a shore. 

"'Twas a wonder the way the unusual bloom 
Was over and under every hollow and hill ! 
It seemed to me then that the heavens shone 
brighter, 



The Long-Haired Barbarian." 53 

And seldom poured tears through the veils of a 

cloud. 
It seemed to me then the few clouds lifted 

lighter 
Their feet, in their march down the sky, as they 

fell. 
It seemed to me too that the stars had more 

room 
To play on the cheek of the night, when we 

bowed 
Two hands full of flowers, and two full of 

hands, 
Counting and recounting the days and the years 
We had loved and might love — four eyes full 

of tears 
And of stars, twin stars flung afar from the 

skies. 

" Flowers pillowed, afloat on the billows of 

grass, 
Stemmed slender as willows and gaudy as glass 
Paned and stained with marvelous dyes, 
Were twirled in the wind, as stars on high 
Twirl over the billows of blue as they pass, 



54 " The Long-Haired Barbarian" 

A whirl from the east and a wheel to the west, 
And play through the forests and gleam on the 

sands, 
Then settle and set in the Occident mist. 
And there was our shrine ; and the bloom-spread 

sod 
Knew more of the pressure of knees that were 

knelt 
In simple devotion than many a shrine 
In temples divine, gold-lettered ' To God' ! 
Those untamed blossoms have clung to her lips 
And tipt, gay lipt, to her cheeks for hours — 
This was our temple, and the stars were its 

towers. 

" And why I am here in the heat of the South, 
Why a hard man speaks with a quivering 

mouth — 
Why rich, yet alone on the wide world's lea, 
Can soon be learned, if you listen. — You see, 
The wind all day, as a heated monsoon, 
Swept up from the south. An occasional cloud 
In the west, lay a-surge on the verge of the 

world, 



" The Long-Haired Barbarian? 55 

Half gilded with gold and half hid in the smoke 

Of an Indian summer, that curled up and furled 

Its fold upon fold through the wold of the sky — 

Blew swift in the morning and swifter at noon ; 

And still when the sun stood bushing a-hover 

Over the placid Pacific ocean, 

As a fond one bowing with love's devotion 

Over a tranquil slumbering lover, 

The wind blew prouder and louder a-loud. 

" Gray grasses of autumn arose in their bed, 
Tossed up in the wind, surged past, then broke 
Into eddies ; and dust to the wind was whirled, 

As spume is blown up from the ocean 

And I 
Stood holding my chestnut-haired bride, as she 

shook 
In my arms and shivered to see the sun set 
Blood-red, and the wind not set with the sun ! — 
Threw her arms to my neck and her head to my 

breast, 
Clung closer, and closer, and shook, as she said : 
'Whatif tribes to the south set fire out to-night! ' 



56 " The Long-H aired Barbarian? 

I quailed as she spoke of a fear, for she met 
Her God face to face, hence her thoughts were 
right. 

" As I held her nearer, my fond heart yet 

Was regretting and fretting, when I turned my 

head, 
And, away to the moon there broke on my sight 
An image of light to the south and afar, 
A red gleam afar and the size of a star ! 
And I knew 'twas the ' photo ' of fire on the 

Plain. 

" She clung closer 

The moon, hung half to the east, 
Seemed to stand in her track and look through 

the mist 
Of the smoke and the dust in distress on the 

fire, 
Now spread through the grasses and grown to a 

main, 
To an ocean of blaze running higher and 

nigher. 



" The Long-Haired Bar barianr 57 

" We flew to our boat, and over, in haste, 
We crossed the river, and, leaping a-shore 
On the leeward bank, we waited, a-quiver, 
To see if the water would be, as before, 

A stay to the fire - 

I held her again. 
One place to the windward the river was narrow, 
Cut deep, but narrow, as a cafioned furrow; 
And a fire on the plains can leap like an arrow. 
As the fire came up to the narrowest place, 
She sprang from my arms, with a frightened 

face, 
And, clutching the grasses, she cried, as she 

twined 
Her hands in the grasses, and standing a-shiver, 
Pale-lipt and a-quiver, her face to the fire, 
With a plaintive voice, ''Tis over the river, 
And on from the river to us ! ' Great Giver ! 
It shot like a bridleless hurricane down, 
Down and upon us, hot and a-frown ! 

" I ran to her rescue, my love, my crown. 
The wind was so high and the fire was so fast, - 
4 



58 " The Long-Haired Barbarian? 

As it shot through the grass by the spur of the 

blast, 
And on with the speed of a word on the wire, 
That my time seemed over ; for the flames 

came on 
With the speed of a chariot lightning drawn. 
The roar of red flames a-surge in the fray, 
And, filling the sky and a-fold in the winds, 
Black billows of ashes a-rolling behind. 
w dway ! ' — too late — flames mad by the sway 
And lash of the gale pour over the way ! 

" A cry from the midst of the fire-sea came, 

As a wailing afar from a wreck at sea — 

A tender cry from a pleading form ! 

While the weird wind, shrieking, and tossing, 

and whirling, 
Kept beating and breaking on the fiery lea, 
On the red-hot maelstrom, that, twisting and 

twirling, 
Eddied around her flame on flame ! 
And, lapping her round in a burning fold, 
A hot wave grappled her lifted arm, 



" The Long-Haired Barbarian? 59 

And down, down in the blistering brine 

Hurled my All / — I spare her name : 

But, whatever her name, I would give my gold 

And all that I am and alt that I hold 

To hold her now, as I held her then. 

" Many summers ago, many moons in the past, 
The coffin was cut in which she was cast, 
On eternity's sea — the beautiful dead — 
To the waves for the haven of heaven ahead. 

u Contented, storm-wet, I could set a-sail 
In the storms of the seas and a-pitch by the gale 
Winters and summers and time without end. 
Death dare to the deck, and bear all the lash 
Of the storm with its wheeling and whirling 

a-dash. 
Look up to the sea-clouds, and cry, ' God send ' ! 
Could stand on the mountains and watch the 

wind blow 
Up millions of flakes from the tempests of snow 
Into piles at my feet, with water-made sands 
Cutting crevices over my purple-pale face, 



60 " The Long- Haired Barbarian? 

While I reach up my shivering white and blue 

hands 
To warm them by sparks from the stars, as they 

blaze 
Out of reach of the world ; — strike fists with the 

gale — 
Bring blows to the snows, never quail, never 

wail ! — 
Would ride in the desert that borders the Plain, 
Girted and skirted by the Plain-land grass, 
With my Indian pony worn and a-stain 
With blood from my face — a-stain on his 

mane 
With blood, by the sand (in the hot-lunged 

gust) 
That stingeth and clingeth, like pebbles of glass — 
Brush my cheek on a cactus, with its arms in 

the sky, 
In its garment of green, and the sun in its eye, 
Looming up and high over the sand-sea tide, 
With its sun-boiling blood and mute and lone, 
Brotherless, sisterless child of the dust — 
Fill my cheek with its prickles, while leaning 

to rein, 



" The Lonz-Haired Barbarian." 6 1 

Till they sting like bees, as I reach and I ride. 

Great God! do anything earthly to hide 

That face and that form going down in the 

tide 
Of grasses ablaze, as it passes, a main 
Driven on sweeping low and sky-high in the 

gust! 
• ••••••• 

"You need more glitter, more gold, my friend; 
For wealth is castled and cold and binned — 
Hearts of rich are castled and thickened twice, 
And bastioned and batteried well with ice ; 
And so if you enter the shelter of castles — 
Enter without the semblance of vassals, 
Or slaves to the rich — you must have goldi 
Yes, I admit that Love is warm, 
And industry honest once baffled the storm, 
And charity melted the hearts of old ; 
But somehow these scarce melt the cold 
Iced hearts of this age — so men must plun- 
der 
For gold, or open their eyes with wonder 
Why friendship is short as a clap of thunder. 



62 " The Long-Haired Barbarian? 

" You have proven a friend long and to the end 
(For the end is near), so take this gold, 
My large-heaped gold, and, before I die 
(For the end is nigh), I will double it thrice; 
For, after she fell in the fold of flame, 
Not another man, or a child, or woman, 
Of all the millions, not a single human 
Ever offered the precious boon of the love 
Of a sister or brother or anything other 
Worthy my trust — nor ever yet strove 
To make me a brother until you came. 

" Christ ! what aileth the curved moon ? 

As she reaches up from the waves that wallow 

Over the Gulf, and hallo, and swallow 

The blind winds walking the Gulf, her arm, 

Uncovered and hovered over her head, 

Trembleth, stained a dusty red ! 

Has she leaned on her arm to drink of a river 

Red with the blood of the mangled years 

Wailing and trailing the Plains of the past? 

Or is it only the sign of a storm 

Of winds, such as once set tossing and crossing 



" The Long-Haired Barbarian?' 63 

The Piains and the whole with flames emboss- 

ing<? 
Or is it the sign that the end is nigh, — 
The end of the World ? or the end of me ? ' 
Go back ! go down, red moon, in the sea, 
Go down ' turned blood ' forever and ever ! 
Or, if ever your arched arm nears and rears 
Into the sky, let the languid eye 
Catch only a light with the old white pallor ! 
Be anything else but a blood-red color ! 



"O the gory days with their wailing numbers, 
And the fevered nights ; and the eye, that 

slumbers, 
Watching a face forever and ever, 
And looking upon an arm that is crooking 
And folding, and holding a pleading lever 
To move one's heart, and catching and hook- 
ing 
The heart till the blood runs out in tears, 
Flooding the pillow! O the huddled years, 
Huddled till all of the hills and hollows 
Crowd into a picture small, that follows 



64 " The Long-Hatred Barbarian." 

Forever the sweep of the eye in sleep 
And the eye awake, till the strained eyes bleed ! 
And the ghost, that carries it, crying, ' Read 
These hills and hollows rolled deed on deed ! 
Read on forever — read and weep ! ' " 

He leaned on me, and his heart did quiver 
And flutter as frail as a floating feather. 

'Twas almost over 

A woman's name 
And a blessing fell from his lips together : 
Then he said : " Ah ! well ! it is all the same ; 
For now I feel the force of a fever 
That soon must settle this all forever ! " 
So saying, the man men thought so strong, 
And cold, and hardened, sank to his knee, 
Bowed down and wept, as a child would 

weep — 
Poured out his spirit broken and bleeding 
From the opened scars of his sinful years, 
Blackened and scarred by deeds of wrong, 
And lifted a yearning prayer with me : 
And "God is love," so, hearing and heeding, 



" The Long-Haired Barbarian." 65 

He sent his Son to the broken spirit, 
Who " washed it white," and, just as the tears 
Were wiped from the penitent sinner's eye, 
He smiled and sank to his deep sweet sleep ! 



FROM TEXAS TO CHILI. 
I. 

PARTING. 

A SEA of dead grass on the plain, 

Whose ports are filled with withered 
flowers, 
That rock upon the autumn tide, 
As unused vessels left to rot 
Upon the sea by sun and rain — 
Biographies the seasons wrote 
Of April, May, and > June, which died — 
A dead sea of dead grass without ! 
A dead sea of dead hopes within ! 
And one new sea a-gleam like tin 
Beneath the sun, where I will float 
Aboard a ship for days of hours, 
Borne heavily amid the din 
Of new-cut memories, and shout ! 
A girl with her disheveled hair 



From Texas to Chili. 67 

Aflow above the prairie flood, 
As the mantle of a trailing star 
Floats on the tide, lifts in the air, 
Along the surface of the sea — 
As golden clouds adrift afar 
Drift over on a flood of wood, 
Hands clasped upon her warm heart, lest 
Its swelling stir her eye-sea tide 
To overflowing, and her pride 
Forbids that this should ever be ! 
A proud girl standing, like a queen, 
Some distance on the wharf from me, 
Unmindful of the busy crowds 
A-dash upon the wharf, like clouds 
Whirled in a whirlwind at the quay 
Up in the sky, where white ships lean 
And toss upon the upper lea 
Of seeming liquid, lunging glass! 

Our ship stands motionless, as she, 
Where waters meet the floods of grass. 
Would it were fixed by bars of brass, 
So firmly to the land, that I 



68 From Texas to Chili. 

Could stand forever on the deck 
And hear the plashing waters fall, 
Forever sounding, fall and break, 
And watch her stand so still and tall, 
With such a heart-hid, burdening wreck, 
Borne silently within through all 
Her years of cold and cloudy sky — 
Watch her stand waiting for our flag 
To clasp hands with the double blue 
Of sky and ocean mingling dew — 
Stand waiting for our ship to drag 
Slow down the sea-hill out of view, 
To hide forever ship and crew ! — 

Lo ! Suddenly our sail a-furl, 
And suddenly the sea a-whirl 
Up under a light trembling-keel, 
To seaward too a ship a-wheel ! 
A shout of glee and wail of woe, 
Discordant winging o'er the waves ; 
And eyes wet at foreboding thought 
Of salted and unsodded graves ; 
Disdainful turnings on the heel; 



From Texas to Chili. 69 

And smiles spread over bursting breasts, 
Hearts breaking, as the breaking crests 
Of waves upon the speechless shore ; 
And arms held up to God to know 
If glad return will be the lot 
Of him or her ; and heads of hoar 
Nodding adieu to early years; 
And maidens walking to and fro ; 
And children wondering at the scene ; 
And — A watery way has come between 
Our vessel and Our land ! Our sails 
Set seaward to its suns and gales ! 

One stood alone upon the rim 
Of land and sea, and hummed a hymn 
Unmeasured and unthought — one stood 
And struggled with her rising blood. 
I watched her from the rocking ship — 
Her standing with her bitten lip. 
The land went gliding down the sea; 
Still stood she, half-way in the flood. 
Her thin, pale hands, did seem to dip 
And dangle in the waves, as she 



jo From Texas to Chili. 

Seemed walking deeper in the deep, 
Until the waters seem to beat 
And break upon her heaving breast 
And drop their foam upon her hair, 
Like white flowers falling in the heat — 
And still she stood and would not weep. 
Then she was hid by wild unrest 
Of waves grown bolder and more wild, 
Until they dared to lift and bear 
A flood between me and this child. 

The sea-surged ship began to reel 
So drunkenly, it made me kneel 
Upon the spume-spread deck and pray, 
" God pilot us upon our way ! " 
And, kneeling with my head a whirl, 
There, suddenly, upon the sea, 
Hands clasped upon her breast, and feet 
Well whitened by the foam and fleet, 
Seemed following that blue-eyed girl 
And leaning tenderly to me. 
Ah ! had she looked such fond desire 
And had she leaned thus tenderly 
A day ago, I would not be 



From Texas to Chili. 71 

Now striving hard to quench this fire 
By. dashing through this dangerous tide. 
I saw a moment, then she fell 
And vanished by the vessel's side. 
Forgetting I was far afloat, 
Forgetting this but seemed to be, 
I started from ray knees and cried : 
" God, lift her from the sea ! " — Ah ! well ! 

The last and highest swell of land 
Seems lying, as the merest mote, 
Scarce visible from where I stand. 
Now, young Past, standing on the shore, 
Shake farewell hands across the wave 
With dim seen Future, and the grave 
Let close above thee evermore. 
Let " farewell ! " be for aye and aye. 

Lift up your new flag high on high 
And shout, my memory, "You and I 
Will stay no longer with the dead ! " 
Kiss quick, Past's pale and purple lip, 
Turn on your heel and head your ship 
Far to the southwest — dash ahead ! 



*]2 ■ From Texas to Chili. 



II. 

A-SAIL. 

4 

Farewell, pale Past and land of grass! 
Eternally farewell to you, 
My high-bred girl ! and, sky of glass, 
Long everlastingly adieu! 

No wormwood tastes so bitterly 
As wormwood taken in the still 
Of meditation, when the eye 
Has lost sight of the eye a-swim 
With farewells filling to the brim, 
When lips, a-touch to lips a-chilf, 
Are parted, and when chins do trill 
And tremble after one is gone, 
And when the face, now left afar, 
Seems looking into yours, and one 
Roams mateless, as a last, lone star. 
To kiss a hasty, hot adieu, 
Is bitter, but not like the kiss 
(For kisses are not always bliss), 



From Texas to Chili. 73 

Of meditating memory. 
To eager hold a long-loved hand 
In parting on a barren strand 
For sailing on the billowy blue 
Can scarcely leave an eye-lid dry ; 
But when the hands hang by the side, 
Or reach out through the bitter years, 
Until they grow so thin and pale 
By drenching in the salted tide 
Of flowing, but unebbing, tears, 
'Tis then the drifting heart is tried, 
And lifted hands droop white and frail. 
When looping arms reach round and cling, 
Embracing in a sad farewell, 
And breast, pressed passionate to breast, 
Heaves heavy, while adieus are said, 
By pouring heart hot into heart, 
As mingled waters, ' bitter-sweet,' 
Poured noiselessly from spring to spring — 
Ah ! breasts thus passionately pressed 
Could never utter half, nor tell 
The number of the sheeted dead ; 
Still rueful as this is, yet this 
6 



74 From Texas to Chili. 

Is mingled with a taste of bliss 
Beside the wormwood when apart 
And reaching out to draw and kiss 
A fleshless form of nothingness 
Forever on the weary waste 
Of sweltering sea, or burning land — 
Forever reaching empty-hand : 
The former is as wind-made wave 
Run o'er the surface of the sea ; 
The latter as an earthquake swell 
That stirs the deep sea in its grave, 
Awaking the sea-buried dead, 
Who sit up in their quaking bed 
Repeating sad the history 
Of youth, and love, and fare-thee-well. 

The sun, a set of blazing gold, 

A breast-pin lying heaving hot 

Upon the bosom of the sea, 

At length was lost behind a fold 

Of Ocean's dark and waving dress 

A-fringe with foam, as maidens' purl 

Their garments with pure white and light. 



From Texas to Chili. 75 

This Ocean's foam-locks tossing free, 

Winds mildly lifting every tress 

So spotless and so pure of sin, 

This Ocean's bosom heaving white, 

Does make me seem to see afar, 

By lamp-light of the evening star, 

The bosom of a high-bred girl 

Breathe fitfully, her hands held hard 

Above, as golden locket's lids, 

To hide the lone keep-sake within. 

A girl who, unmoved, stood and barred 

Her sympathies, amid the din 

Of partings on the distant quay — 

I wonder if, since I am gone, 

She sometimes sets the door ajar, 

And, standing on the wet wharf, bids ; 

Her feelings to the reverie ! 

And wishes what she said to me 

Were farther off than where I am, 

And I were there where it was said ; 

And wishes, bitterly, undone 

What 's done, and recollection dead ! 



76 From Texas to Chili. 

The sky hangs mellowly and calm 

And listens to the ceaseless psalm 

That floats up from the devout flood, 

Day and night, a hymn to God. 

The moon, arisen in new birth, 

Is held up to the arching lea 

By holding to the starry girth 

Of white, gold-studded, milky-way, 

Which belts the blue and bastioned sky 

And buttons it down to the Earth. 

No wonder, if the heart does melt 

To feelings all before unfelt, 

Afloat beneath a scene like this, 

Such mellow quiet tenderness. 

The waves come up against our ship, 

And kiss it with a trembling lip. 

So gentle is the blue and green 

Soul of the sea, that only the spars, 

Only the tip-top seems to tip 

So slightly to the tipping stars. 

The only thing that meets my eye, 

That is not mild, from sea to sky, 

Is, off to east beneath the moon, 



From Texas to Chili. 77 

The reaching of the troubled tide; 

And, on its crest, white sea-froth shines 

As snow-spread tops of wind-stirred pines 

Upon a mountain-tide of land, 

Or white-robed dead late deified 

That Christ-like on the billows stand 

Unsinking, glorified, and grand. 

And this even is a far-off boon ; 

For, O my God ! this moonlight still 

Is harder and would quicker kill, 

Than farewells on a barren strand ! 

The silent pain unnerved my will. 

I started, as if from a swoon, 

And clasped my cold hand to my head, 

Grown gray by fine fallen flakes of foam 

And dampened by a night of dew, 

And cried : " My God, take up this dead, 

Like Moses, to an unknown tomb ! 

Darken this calm and silent blue ! 

Set boiling this sad dreaming sea ! 

The roar, the rack of storm and gale, 

A lunging ship, a tattered sail, 

A torn flag dragging in the ocean, 



78 From Texas to Chili. 

An hundred people shrieking, pale, 
And seeking safety in devotion, 
Were far more bearable by me ! " 



I broke this painful reverie 
Only when night broke for the day, 
And the vessel, which all night long lay 
So timidly upon the wave, 
Began its rocking in the breeze : 
And then my heart, grown over brave, 
Laughed loudly, shouted, sang with ease : 
" The Past is in an unknown grave ! " 



III. 

A-SHORE. 

A cloud afire, a rich red bar, 
Stretching over a setting sun, 
A yellow coin of burning gold 
Tossed on the table of the sea! 
The Andes looming up afar, 



From Texas to Chili. 79 

Upon whose shining face a stone , 
Has caught the image of a star 
Pale, trembling at the sinking sun ! 
A flood of orange sunset, run 
Unhardened from a vesper mould, 
Floods South American Italy ! 
And Chili's peaks and gorgeous strand 
Are swimming in this glorious hue. 
Hail ! serene sea and luring land ! 
Hail ! lifting peaks, who pin the blue 
And hold it bended over you ! 
Hail ! home of condors floating high 
And drifting through the tidal sky. 
High-handed mountains raised to grasp 
The heaven-high drifts of snows, to clasp 
Them to your heated breasts, hail ! hail ! 
Strange land, shout welcome to our sail ! 

The sun is down ; the sail is up 
And bowing to the blooming shore ; 
And we, ashore, stand charmed and sup 
The breezes ,of the balmiest sea 
And balmiest fields that ever bore 
Free vessels and the shouts of free. 



80 From Texas to Chili. 



RETRORSUM. 

The wharf built by the land of grass 
So many hundred miles away! 
I wonder if that proud girl stands 
Unweeping 'neath the sky of glass, 
Or if she weeps and wrings her hands ! 

Take hold my hand, take hold my heart 
My Chilian land, and be my spouse, 
My land of plain and I will part; 
Nor let thy warm unwailing sea 
Forever and forever rouse 
That distant, dimming memory, 
That tearless girl's last look to me. 



"GROWING OLD." 



BY MISS FADING FLIRT. 



T TAKE the Bible from the shelf 

And o'er the " Record " pore and pore 
And read it over to myself, 

" Was bom in eighteen-forty-four ! " 
I would not utter it aloud — 

No, not for all my father's gold — 
Still will the thought upon me crowd, 
" I'm growing old ! " 

I looked into the glass to-night. 

I noticed little veins of blue 
Stood out upon my brow of white — 

I mused — " Alas ! then this is true, 
My face has not a sign of red ! " 

And yet my heart is hardly bold 
Enough to say, what might be said, 
" I'm growing old ! " 



82 " Growing Old." 

" They " only come now " as a friend " 

And sit upon the farthest chair. 

They're careful now not to offend (!) 

By mentioning that I am fair, 
Or venturing to press my hand. 

Are not so " rude " as to enfold 
Their arms about me, as I stand — 
Ah ! — growing old ! 

They talk of politics and money, 

The ones that used to talk of ' : love" 

And " luscious lips as sweet as honey," 
And say, " Come nestle near, my dove ! 

They " wonder why I do not wed," 
Yet never " offer " — O ! how cold ! 

They mean, by this, I am afraid, 

" You're growing old ! " 

I thought I heard two saucy girls 
Say, as they passed the other day, 
"Of late her boasted flood of curls 

Is growing thin — well, that 's the way ! " 



" Growing Old? 83 

It's true; for, when I comb my hair, 

The comb fills full as it can hold. 
I almost cry out in despair, 

" I'm growing old ! " 



One time my hands were pigeon-breasted — 
How fondly then they used to kiss them ! 

How many tears upon them rested ! 

But now somehow they never miss them. 

Instead of dimples now are knuckles, 
And Charlie, who once came to hold 

Them fondly, stays away and chuckles, 

" She 's growing old ! " 

William, with your " little ones ! " 
O Charlie, with your smiling eyes, 

Two stars now sparkled into suns ! 

O many others, whose "good-bys " 
Each left upon my heart the trace 

Of fleeting years ! you say, I'm told, 

1 dare not look you in the face, 

Since growing old ! 



84 " Growing Old? 

The mothers call upon me now, 

And ministers, to sympathize 
And point me to the " promise bow " (!) — 

"You're pale," they say, with scores of 
"whys?" 

me ! they know, as well as I, 
My color in my youth was sold, 

And that the only reason why 

Is " growing old ! " 

1 see my face is growing thin ; 

I see my lips have lost their red ; 
I've lost the dimple on my chin 

And half the hair upon my head. 
I'm growing prudish in my notions ; 

I fear I'm growing to " a scold ; " 
I'm growing angular in motions — 
" I'm growing old." 

I see the maidens in the street 
Smile, as I pass them of a morn. 

Men have quit gazing at my feet ; 
And bachelors now say, " Forlorn ! " 



" Growing Old." 85 

That used to call me " young and green." 

Sometimes they say, " Old maid" I'm told, 
And, " Growing pious, growing lean, 
And growing old ! " 

I gave my younger, sweeter life, 
To witcheries and smiles and lies, 

And frightened at the thought of " wife " — 
My older life I give to sighs. 

I look back to my warmer days, 
Now that my heart is growing cold. 

And sigh, " Flirtation never pays, 

When we are old! " 



EDGAR A. POE. 



i. 



\^7"EIRD meteor of a doleful dye 

Thus flaming in a gloomy sky, 
As wayward as the comet wild, 
Thou strange, romantic, unknown child, 
A bust of deep unearthly woe, 
Mysterious, morbid, dreamy Poe ! 

n. 

Lamented be the day that found 
Thy storm-swept vessel rockward bound, 
And doubly cursed the fatal day, 
When thy lone life-boat shattered lay, 
In floating fragments, o'er the sea ! — 
A mournful loss, when Heaven lost thee 

in. 

Thou wast an angel strayed to earth, 
Thy voice commingling in the mirth, 



EdgarA.Poe. 87 

And dreaming, not of gloom, but joy, 
And heaven, and beauty, fair-haired boy. 
But, " Fallen ! " what a word of wail ! 
What ranks of misery crowd its trail ! 

VI. 

Who knows the swelling veins of gall 
That burst thy soul, when thou didst fall *? 
Who knows the quenchless flame that fired — 
Consumed thy peace and then expired, 
Leaving the evil all unburned — 
The ashes of thy soul un-urned ? 



THREE WRECKS. 

A WRECK in the blue of the heaven, 
Wreck of a billowy cloud — 
Cloud-waifs that are drifting and driven, 

Shreds of a cloud-ship shroud ! 
The trail of a midnight comet 
Caught in the spar of a cloud ! 

Stars in their raiment of yellow, 
Floating a-top of the waves — . 

A-top of the high blue billow 
Dashing up over the graves 

Of the crew of the stranded vessel, 

The cloud-ship that broke on the waves ! 

A glimmer of twilight waiting 

The roll of blue waves to their strand, 

With waifs and a starry freighting 
To crush it down into the sand, 

To hurry this remnant of twilight 

To the sky-shore and dash it a-strand ! 



Three Wrecks. 89 

The face of the moon on a pillow 

Of blue encased in the foam 
Of a white cloud stitched to the billow — 

Cold face, pale face in the spume, 
And dumb and afloat as a corpse's 

Asleep on the sea and its foam ! 

A hum of the fall of river 

That sounds like the flutter of wings 
Of a bird in the sky, and ever 

Its measure is sad, as it sings ! 
A rainbow of white in the heavens, 

Drooped down from the centre as wings, 

The milk-white way, for the roaming 
Of strange stars treading the way — 

For those that come up from the foaming 
To East and go down in the spray 

That breaks on the walls of a city, 

Where they rest through the lustre of day \ 

Now and then one flashing and falling 
Down from the highway, as a life ! 
7 



90 Three Wrecks. 

Voices of "far-off" calling! 

Sparks from a memory rife ! 
A pale face pressing a window, 

Lips blue as the lips of her life ! 

Lips folding the name of a lover ! 

Heart dead as a heart-dead tree ! 
Tears catching the purple above her 

And the dead-faced moon, maybe, 
And painting them into a picture 

Of a tide-tossed face on the sea ! 

Thin hands in the moonlight folding 

Bitterly over a breast, 
Clasping them over, as holding 

Her own sad history prest 
Alone to a pitiful bosom, 

Alone to a blighted breast ! 

A sky, like a sea, in motion, 
The wreck of a cloud o'erhead ! 

A sail a-trail in the ocean, 

Spars bowing above the dead ' 



Three Wrecks. 91 

A wreck in the heart of a maiden, 
No wonder her face is sad ! — 



No wonder the red cheek blanches ; 

No wonder the lips are thin ; 
No wonder a tear-tide drenches 

Her face ; no wonder the din 
Of a storm, and a wreck, and a sea-wail, 

Is stirring her heart within, 
At a scene like this; no wonder 

She leans with a trembling chin, 
Her wan face pressing the window ; 

No wonder her lips are thin ! 



A BOOK. 

73 EALITIES must have an end ; 

And dreams flee faster than the real ; 
And hearts are histories that blend 
The sad, the sweet, the false, the true, 
Regrets, with satisfactions few — 
The pen that writes is frosted steel, 

And many-colored is the ink. 
One line penned whiter than the page, 
And pointed with its points of pink, 
The symbols of the pure and weak — 
The blue, the true, the black, the bleak : 
The purple cold in death and age. 

The line of blurred and blotted red, 
The dripping blood of violence : 
The gift of gold writes one has wed 
The show of wealth ; the silver touch 



A Book. 93 

Tells of the dead ones, tells where such 
In Heaven pitch their shining tents ! 

And I have turned this blended book 
Till I have found the silvered line ; 
And so I read which way to look 
Devoutly to her shining tent — 
And sometimes, when the veil is rent, 
She listens, while I call her Mine. 



INDIAN SUMMER ON THE PLAINS. 

f~* R ASS ! grass ! plashing, plashing under the 

hollow glass 
Held, hung, and hollowed over the world of 

grass ! 
Sky of glass, palm of the hand of God on high ! 
Grass and sky under and over, filling the world 

and eye ! 
Space ! space ! and never a sign and never a 

single trace 
Of fallen cities, or where a tyrant has set his 

face ! 
Far, far away look at a setting star, 
With never a forest, nor even a single spar, 
Far, far a-reach from a single tree to mar 
The streaming light — to throw on the face a 

bar ! 
Flowers ! flowers ! taller, grander, standing 

above as towers 
Over a roof of green ! — Now falling their leaves 

in showers. 



Indian Summer on the Plains. 95 

Bloom ! bloom ! fading, falling, falling away in 

gloom ! 
Green ! green ! falling away, going down to a 

tomb! 
Roof! roof of green wrought in wonderful woof 
Over the world as a temple, you wrought as a 

roof; 
Flowers, as towers, now that the crisping hours 
Come, temple, towers, all fading, falling your 

powers ! 
Stand ! stand ! gray, brown, dead as a withered 

hand, 
Gray as a ruined temple in an old and fabled 

land! 
Gales ! gales ! swift running and whirling! wails 
Sounding from under the chariot wheels ! gales 
Whirling the dust, tossing the grass, flapping 

the veils — 
Veils ! veils of Indian summer smoke walking 

the air with trails ! 

Red ! red light of the sun — face of the moon 
o'erspread ! 



96 Indian Summer on the Plains. 

Redder than anything living, redder than any* 

thing dead, 
Red in the struggle of death, neither living nor 

dead — 
This is Indian summer — red, painfully red ! 



SAILOR'S FAREWELL. 

DID not think yours was the hand, 
Clung as it was, to loose so soon — 
Your love the tender guiding moon, 
Bright in my night, to stop and stand 
Half way to noon and fade and dim 
And leave me in the voiceless gloom, 
Stand trembling on the narrow rim, 
That circles an eternal tomb. 

Hard as this is, I yield — Farewell ! 
There are times when the boasted will 
Stands like a dead man in the still ; 
And this is one, when lovers tell 
The last love-beads, and blur and blot, 
By blood-lined tears, life's young white page. 
But go — and hope that yet this thought 
May dim by dust and din of age ! 



98 Sailors Farewell. 

The heart is not a cup of steel : 

I cannot keep this keen-edged word 

From cutting, though a brilliant bird 

Sings loud its melody of weal, 

And flutters joyous on the sea, 

And specks it with the foam a-shine — 

It is the same, or worse to me, 

Its song but saddens the repine. 

This shore to leave I would be loath, 
Were we but one still, as before, 
Our voices tangling in the roar 
Of ocean in his fur of froth, 
Somehow I see his whitened rim 
Seem reaching up between us two, 
And waves loop round me limb to limb, 
And bear me swift away from you. 

Would this were o'er, and we afar ! 
And yet my heart does bleed to know, 
O God, how soon this will be so. 
When I am gone, hold, like a spar, 



Sailors Farewell. 99 

Your hand high o'er your head to mark 
The ruin and the wreck below, 
Your smugglings in the stormy dark — 
Call me, and I will come to you. 

I know we two, apart, will kneel, 

Instead of knee to knee, as now, 

When years, and miles, and tears, and woe 

As thirsting caravan will reel 

Between us on a desert way — 

Will kneel and listen to the sea 

In murmured prayer — will kneel and pray 

For what can never, never be. 

'Tis hard to know one is alone ; 
Yet drear as 'tis, I will not miss 
The clasp, and smile, and sacred kiss, 
More than thou wilt, and not more prone 
Will trail upon my troubling breast 
The leaves and bloom that love has grown, 
Than they, so pale and deathly dressed, 
Will lean low on thy trembling own. 



ioo Sailor s Farewell. 

No less will days be desolate, 

With corpses and a burial rite. 

I bear henceforth one lifelong night — 

For days are nights, at least I rate 

Them shadows of my former days — 

No whit less desolate and dead 

Than thine, nor song-full, bloom-full Mays 

Can lighten long their sombre tread. 

But go — and hope this lonesome knell 
May drown in noise of years ! Is this, 
My God ! the fruit of flowering kiss ? 
Is this the end of bliss? " Farewell ! " 
Such is not much, yet it does fill 
More eyes brimfull of bitternesses, 
Yet it more lips does blue and chill 
Than graves and death — white more gold 
tresses 1 

We pass fast on life's bustling way, 
Pass running, and, with ruth, alas ! 
Reach left and right to those we pass, 
And reckless shake fair hands and say, 



Sailors Farewell. 101 

" Farewell ; farewell ! " until we grasp 
Some hand that draws us lip to lip ; 
Then, when we start and break this clasp, 
Two hearts break with the breaking grip. 

I did not think yours was the hand 
To stop me, in my rush to wake 
This charming song so soon to break 
In measured wails — to leave unmanned 
Two ships to toss on sunless sea ! — 
Unclasped, ungripped from those we woo, 
Hands shake less warmly, after we 
Have torn them from the tender true ! 

The world is wild, and teeming wide 
With motley millions true and false. 
Rush in amid their shout and waltz — 
Nod sadly to the medley tide 
Of youth and age ; the half, maybe, 
Have clasped hands once too often, too ! 
And should you see two, knee to knee, 
Weep not that 'tis not me and you. 



102 Sailors Farewell. 

For lips must touch but to untouch ; 

And breast hugs breast, and trembles glad 

But to be left unclasped and sad ; 

And parting hands are left to clutch 

At shadows, always empty-hand ; 

And eyes with love-light shine and burn 

But to be turned to tears — so stand 

And say : " Farewell ! " and do not mourn ! 

God never gives but one like thee 
To wander, with thy bleeding feet, 
A time amid the cold and heat, 
And lead one on, as you have me. 
Farewell ! and should a troubled keel 
Toss up in view, and should you hear 
Sometime a sea-waii — should you kneel 
Then on this shore, pray weep no tear 
Because you cannot kneel more near 
Me tossing on that wheeling ship — 
And, should you see me reach and reel, 
Let no lament lift purpling lip ! 



LIFE IN DEATH. 

A LONE green tree amid the dead, 
A lone flower on a lone green tree, 
Blue blossom gleaming overhead, 
And bluer than a blue-bell's blue, 
And vying with the spotless hue 
Of May skies melting to a sea ! 

Leaves leaning to the lisping stream, 
Limbs clasping to the tender breeze, 
Shells painted pure and rich-hued cream ! 
Blue bloom now turned up to the sky, 
Now gazing with its golden eye 
On shadows bended to their knees ! 

These shadows circling round me, knelt, 
Seem so like voiceless angels, till 
Their sainted tendernesses melt 
And flood my spirit like a balm. 
They kneel, they kiss me in the calm, 
And woo to worship in the still. 



104 Life in Death. 

Green grasses with a touch of blue, 
Calm blades that tread with tufted feet, 
That, arm in arm and two by two, 
Seem, moving in the mellow shade, 
To woo with whispers, so afraid 
To break the peace so sad, yet sweet. 

This live spot 'mid the soulless dead, 

This still life hath its counterpart, 

A history unwrit, unsaid, 

Save only what the pen of God 

Has written on the silent sod 

Of sod-bloomed graves within a heart. 

This stately beauty-bearing tree 
Is as the symbol of a life. 
That one blue blossom seems to me, 
So purer than the sinless sky, 
The symbol of a sweet fond eye 
Which calls up recollections rife. 



THE GARDEN WAY. 



nr*HIS world 's a great fair flower-garden spot 

That lies along a " ghastly rapid river " 
Called Death ; and, on the other bank, the lot 
Of Heaven, high broad plateau, lies gleaming 

ever, 
Whose shining leaves eternal wither not ; 
And in the dismal mist, stands reaching over 
This stream a damp drear bridge, and named 

the Tomb, 
A crossing on the Christian's highway home. 

ii. 

This highway is a straight and narrow road 
Through Earth's flower beds, o'er the bridge, and 

up to rest. 
Away back from the river's deathly flood 
We, young and easily wrong impressed, 



106 The Garden Way. 

Begin our trial journey up toward God. 
This blooming Garden, in its glory dressed, 
Is hedged with trees of mystery, that drop 
Their lightless blossoms from their dusky top. 

in. 

First, here's a bed of Doubts that creep and feel 
About the ground, and o'er it weave and tangle 
How, at the silent eloquent appeal 
That glistens from a thousand flowers that 

dangle 
Amid their wet work, does the feeling steal 
On us to go and pluck some curious spangle ! 
Stay out : for once amid this twining host 
Of doubts, your feet are caught, and all is lost ! 

IV. 

And, O ! the gorgeous splendor of this bed 
Of pleasure-posies ! How they shimmer, 

twinkle, 
How beckon with each sparkling, nodding head ! 
Their witching, silvery, golden, diamond tinkle - 



The Garden Way. 107 

Calls, " Come ! " And how her lolling beauties 

plead 
"Come in!" — Go not; for stinging nettles 

crinkle 
Beneath these flowers, thick and matted. When 
The gar'dner comes to gather them, mark, then — 

v. 

He'll drive you 'mid the leaves of punishment 
That rustle in the bitter vale of Pain ! — 
And here 's a bed of Hopes, but ah ! how blent 
With flowers of fear so pale and crisped by 

blain ! 
These are uncertainties, whose flowers, top-bent, 
Keep tossing, bowing, lifting, and, in vain, 
Reaching for something never found to clasp. 
Go not to pluck their bloom — withhold thy 

grasp ! 

VI. 

Go not among their restless stalks, to let 
Them blind you, with their endless, cursed toss- 
ing. 



108 The Garden Way. 

Keep straight ahead, till at the parapet 
That leads you to the river's gloomy crossing ; 
Then close your weary eyes without regret, 
Lay hands in Christ's, who'll lead you crossing 
Beyond, where death nor sorrow ever dares 
To enter, " and God shall wipe away all tears! " 



' MOTHER, PRAY! 

SIT and sing the cheerless song 
That I have sung so many years, — ■ 
A song that has no hope. How long 
Before to-night, since any tears 
Have bathed the fever of my eye ! 
O, me ! my very heart will break ! 
For, though I kneel so low and try, 
I cannot pray. Then let me cry 
The night away, and let me take 
My tears to her, for she can pray. 
How many nights of storm and calm 
Now has she pointed out the way. 
Still, when she prays, God hears my name 
I cannot pray ; then let me go 
And give my tears to her; I know 
That she would clasp her hands, and bow 
With sweetened tears to know that I 
Can even weep and wish to pray. 
O mother, let me come and lay 



no Mother, Pray ! 

My yearning tears upon thy prayer, 

To wing them Home, and kindly near 

And pour them in the hand of God, 

That He may know I kneel and try 

To say a prayer, and " kiss the rod !".... 

What tender voice runs on the air ? 

O mother, 'tis his words I hear ; 

" We own thy tear," I hear Him say, 

" And let thee pray ! " . . 

I pray ! I pray ! 



ESTHER. 

T7STHER, the light sun lingers 

And works with his gilded fingers 
In the tops of the trees, 
Under and over tangling 
His silken rays, 
With broken ravelings spangling 
The breeze. 

Esther, the sun with gilt fingers, 
That works in the tree-tops, lingers 

Where I can see, 
But never can feel, his glory ; 

And so of thee 
The " dim-remembered story " 
Unfelt I see! 



ELLEN. 

"DACK years, many years in the distance, 
Where the sea of the past in the far-off 
Clasps hands with my life-sky of purple, 
Forever I see, by the foaming, 
Her feet in the pebbles of sea-shells, 
Her hair in the hands of the sea-breeze, 
Her lips in the kiss of the sea-surf 
And her violet eyes in a tear-tide — 
Forever I see, by the foaming, 
A memory fond and eternal : 
And daily I kneel by the sea-shore, 
And holding my ear to the sea-shells, 
Pink-lipped and eternally singing, 
In echo, the sounds of the voices 
That mingle their melody o'er them. 
I catch, from their lips pink, singing, 
The prayer of my beautiful Ellen. 

Then, looking away to the future, 
I see, on the rim of an ocean 



Ellen. 1 1 3 

More peaceful than placid Pacific, 
Out of Time in the country eternal — 
On the rim of the waters of crystal, 
Her hair in the hands of the breezes 
Of balm in the blisses of Heaven, 
Her soul brimming over with beauty 
And love that is more than eternal. 
And so I reach back in the distance, 
Regretting the shore I am leaving, 
And lean with a hope to the future, 
Rejoicing at what I am nearing. — 
-Look back dim-eyed to a picture, 
A memory fond and eternal, 
Look on, with a hope, into Heaven, 
For a love that is more than eternal — 
Look back on the dead and a parting 
With memory fond and eternal — 
Ahead with the hope of a meeting 
With love that is more than eternal. 



N 



A MEMORY. 

r\ MOUNTS ! O moons ! O stars ! O trees ! 

O skies ! O lakes ! O rushing streams ! 
O rough-hewn lands ! O rolling seas ! 
O wormwood dregs of broken dreams ! 
Why stir those winter wind-numbed bees 
Of memory to set their stings 
To torturing my wayward soul 
And deafening with their din of wings *? 
Why frown ? why smile ? why rush ? why 

roll? 
Why are these shoutings, whisperings, 
Dead leaves of Falls and blooms of Springs 
Forerunners up my wild weird way, 
To wail unending in my ears, 
When skies are clear, or dark, or gray, 
That tender voice of early years, 
And make me out of bitter tears 
See, on the northeast shore of pine, 
That child " found floating on the brine ? " 



" THE CHILD OF WOE ! " 

CHE walks on the shore of a wintry night; 
And her hands are thin, and her hair is 
white — 
White with the snows that come below, 
And each flake, pitying, tries to light 

So tenderly over the " Child of Woe " — 
And yet, as they gather soft and slow, 
Clustering over her neck of snow, 

She shivereth under her scanty fold — 

Cold, so cold ! 

The world is white, and the sky is hid 
By tears that fall from under the lid 

Of clouds shut over the eye-like moon, 
As, frozen a frosty white, they glide 

Down the cheek of the sky, so soon 
To light and mingle them, cold as stone, 
With tears meandering, one by one, 

Over her face — O men with gold ! — 

Cold, so cold ! 



n6 " The Child of Woe? 

The clouds, o'erhanging, are white and chill 
As the snowy earth ; and, up on the hill, 

The marble monuments, slim and tall, 
Lean up to the sky so pale and still ; 

And her face is white as the snows that fall - 
And the drearest spot in her heart of all, 
Is where there trembles the cheerless wail, 

A word too sad for the world to hold, 

" Cold, so cold ! " 

The snows crowd into her tattered shoe — 
No wonder her lips are thin and blue ! — 

And blue ne'er symboled a sweeter mind, 
Or a soul whose needle could dip more true 

To Heaven than hers, or a heart more kind ; 
And still the eyes of the world are blind — 
And, O, here cometh a whirl of wind ! 

God, help her see through the flying fold 

Of snows, so cold ! 

How rise the drear and gathering drifts ! 
And each, like a living ghost, uplifts 



" The Child of Woe" 1 1 7 

As though it reached for the cold embrace 
Of the upper drift, that wails and sifts 

Down chillingly into her whitened face ! 
How fast it covers the latest trace 
Of her freezing feet, as, pace by pace, 

She strives on, hugging the scanty fold, 

Cold, so cold ! 

And no one offers a guiding hand 
To help her over the whitened sand, 

As fair lights out of the windows gleam 
Where all within is a tropic land — 

Ah ! would it a want of charity seem 
Should she, adrift with the snowy stream, 
Half-way think and half-way dream 

That the hearts and hands that have the gold 

Are cold, O ! cold ? 

O, me ! what a homeless waif of woes ! 
Sailing alone on a sea of snows, 

Her yearning voice so frail that none 
Will listen at all, and no one knows 

Its cry is meant for a signal gun ! 



n8 "The Child of Woe? 

So the strong go by her one by one — 
No wonder then, as she tosses on, 

She sighs, a-clutching her scanty fold, 

" The World is cold ! " 

And, O ! as she goes, will no one come 
And make in his heart an-inch of room? 

And warm her cheek with a Christian tear ? 
And take her out of the snowy gloom ? — 

What a pitiful call for a bit of cheer! 
O ! how can a Christian help but hear *? 
Then send her to me, for, O ! I fear 

No one will know, till a snowy fold 

Winds her — cold ! 



SO LOOK ABOVE. 

/J HOLT stillness hovers in the air 

And bathes the soul in peaceful reverie ; 
Breathe low, nor speak, nor sigh, nor even dare 
To break the sweetened still with sounds of glee ! 

The very flowers their purest homage tend 
And kiss their fragrant incense to the sky. 
They look above, and drop and blend 
Their sinless tears where dying shadows lie. 

The silver moon unveils her timid face 
Made mild with messages of speechless love — 
God's felt, but unseen, presence fills the place 
And melts the heart to prayer — so look above ! 

FINIS. 



